Recent Case Wins

Errors during birth led to damages of £6.5m

Child H was left with Cerebral palsy and significant brain damage as a result of the mismanagement of her birth at the Princess of Wales Hospital, Bridgend.

After an extensive legal battle, the hospital’s solicitor admitted that the hospital had managed the birth negligently leaving Child H suffering from significant and lifelong brain damage – she is unable to walk unaided, talk or feed herself and she will in addition, require 24 hours care and assistance for the rest of her life. The award the clinical negligence partners negotiated was made up of a significant lump sum payment as well as tax free annual payments for life, which will cover the cost of providing additional nursing care, equipment and various therapies. This settlement, known as a structured settlement, equates to a lump sum of £6.5 million.

A 13 year old boy, (known as Child T) who was born at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, suffered Erb’s Palsy (serious damage to his arm, shoulder and hand) at the time of his birth. Child T’s parents instructed senior Partner, Tony Mills, of our medical negligence team to pursue a claim for negligence on their son’s behalf. Child T has undergone two major operations to try to correct the injury but suffers ongoing pain and is still unable to do most two-handed activities. At best his left arm is used as a support and it is likely that he will get arthritis in this arm as well. The pain experienced has led to Child T missing out on time at school because of the many inpatient admissions. Tony secured the highest ever payment of damages for an injury of this type with an award of £850,000. A significant proportion of the damages award is to go towards ongoing treatment.

£250,000 lump sum for a missed cancer leading to death of wife and mother of four

Stuart Bramley, Partner, was instructed by the father of a young family of 4 children, after the death through cervical cancer, of his wife and their mother. Mrs H had what she was told was a negative cervical smear in 2000. This was followed up by a further negative smear in 2003. However, tragically Mrs H died of cervical cancer in 2007. Stuart successfully argued that Mrs H should have been referred following her initial 2000 smear test as it showed dyskaryotic (abnormal) cells. If this had been done, Mrs H would have been treated for the cancer and on the balance of probabilities would have survived.

Although upsetting circumstances, this was an exceptional result: the case was very finely balanced due to its inherent complexity and sensitive nature. Most importantly, the compensation has gone a little way in helping the family to move on with their lives.

Substandard cardiac surgery at Bristol Royal Infirmary leads to damages of over £3.85 million

Endurance Arthur, Partner, was instructed by the parents of a 19 year old man (B) after negligent heart surgery left him with severe brain damage, epilepsy, severe behavioural problems and autistic traits; he also has a significantly reduced life expectancy.

B underwent surgery to correct a heart defect at Bristol Royal Infirmary in 1992. As part of his case it was argued on B’s behalf that he was denied the better operation for his condition because Bristol had such poor results for it. When the less optimum operation was eventually carried out, it was done incompetently and exposed B to brain damage. However, whilst Bristol conceded that surgery was done in a substandard manner, it argued that the resulting damage was not the type it would have expected to see as a result of the negligence. Endurance secured an award of compensation totalling more than £3.85 million, comprising a lump sum of £1m and annual payments for the rest of his life.

Damages secured for parents of new-born infant who died from negligently acquired Group B Streptococcus infection

Stuart Bramley, represented the parents of an infant who died shortly after birth, having negligently acquired Group B Streptococcus during her delivery. The mother of the deceased baby, one of twins, was not provided with intravenous antibiotics during the delivery stage of labour despite the fact that ante-natal tests had revealed the mother was a carrier of the infection.

As well as securing damages for the parents, Stuart had earlier represented the family at the inquest.

Clair Hemming, Partner, who specialises in cosmetic surgery claims, was instructed by a 41-year-old woman, after her breasts were left misshapen and scarred following a breast reduction operation in December 2005. Two weeks after the initial operation, she returned to the hospital to have the dressings changed and was told that the sutures had dissolved and that the wounds were gaping.

After the wounds had healed, she realised that her breasts were almost the same size as they had been before the operation and that they had a misshapen, boxy appearance with marked indentation down the sides. The vertical and horizontal scarring was wide and red, contrary to what she had previously been told. She was left embarrassed, her relationship was affected and she required further surgery. Our case was that the surgery was performed negligently and, in addition, that our client had not been alerted to the possibility of wide, prominent scarring.

Two years later, our client underwent a further breast reduction at a different hospital and as a result had appropriately shaped breasts of the size she had initially wished for and with less obvious scarring.

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